Pre-Med Resources and Medical School Rankings

Medical School Choices

Written by System Administrator

Over 2,000 premeds voted in a poll asking "What's most important in choosing a medical school?"

The answer with the most responses supports a common idea among physicians, that the exact medical school you go to doesn't much matter. About 36 percent of premeds didn't care which medical school they went to, as long as they got the opportunity to get an MD.

The least common answer, that the research focus of the university was most important, calls into question the value of medical school rankings which often weight the research efforts of a medical school heavily. It is a bit surprising that less than 3 percent of medical school applicants considered research focus the most important factor.

In decending order the next most important factors are Reputation, Affordability, Ranking, Location, Primary care focus, It's near family. The bar graph shows the number of responses for each factor.

As tuition costs go up, and medical school loans become harder to get, affordability might grow in importance.

The poll ran from November 23, 2010, to January 15, 2011, and had responses from 2,494 visitors to StudentDoc.